2021: The year that was.
2021 is almost over.
For some, that will definitely bring a cheer. For others, perhaps a slightly different emotion or expression to represent the year that was 2021.
I don’t set New Year’s resolutions. I do, however, tend to start each year with a ‘word’. Coming to the end of the year, it’s time to reflect on the year that was, and my word is a good place to start.
This word represents what I really want or perhaps need to lean into over the coming 12 months. Sometimes I pick the word, other times it picks me and despite a lot of resistance, I know that it’s my highest self (call it my intuition, if you will) pulling me towards what needs to come through.
Although I didn’t take into account devastating bushfires that ravaged our country, and a world-wide pandemic starting in 2020 and continuing into 2021, it seemed that the word expansion, was still on the cards.
You see, the last two years I have really had to rely on my significant amount of experience as a rest and renewal coach and take a big step back. Going into lock down for 10 weeks here in Tasmania (and knowing how blessed we were that that was the most extreme period of time for our little state – so far; there are so many who are still in that space around the world) early in 2020 and then being unable to travel or see loved ones from afar for most of 2021, tends to bring ones focus inwards.
To the family. To the home. To myself.
School online, work from home, doing laps around our hilly neighbourhood to move our bodies.
We’re back in this place as I write this, lovely one. My son had open heart surgery in Melbourne in November and we are still in home quarantine post our arrival home. no hilly walks allowed right now, and no grocery trips. Just us, and our 5 acre bush property.
Life became and has been… simpler.
We are being blessed with a great recovery for him and so despite still having to try and get some form of work done, our focus has had to become rest. Taking life more slowly.
It’s been both a joy and infuriating at the same time.
How on earth was expansion going to show up in my life and my business, if so many of my clients had put their coaching on hold because they had lost of reduced their work, I couldn’t see people (extrovert over here, ouch!) and all of a sudden I had very little time without two small kiddos peering over my shoulder and introducing themselves over Zoom?
After 5.5 years as a rest and renewal coach helping professionals feel more rested, renewed and re-energised by their lives outside of work, the time had come where no matter how much I wanted to resist the drive to work, I had absolutely no choice in the matter.
Even though 2020 and 2021 haven’t looked the way I thought they would – expansion still showed up in my life.
Expansion through the creation of time and space for my family, less travel and less expectations on our time as university academics (my other work as a lecturer and academic of 12 years) meant that I have at the same time as experiencing uncertainty, experienced expansion in my personal life.
But in sitting in the quiet, a niggle that I hadn’t been expecting, started to show up.
I need to move away from exclusively doing rest and renewal coaching work.
Yikes.
Saying that is really hard, given I have spent the first five and a half years of my coaching business in rest and renewal work. I have worked with incredible, incredible people from all over the world and I am so grateful.
I will always write about and embrace rest and renewal in my work, and it will show up here on the blog sometimes too – after all, it is in the quiet that we truly understand who we are and what we are here to step up and do in this world - but it is no longer going to be the sole focus of what I do. If you have been following me for my rest and renewal work, then I lovingly and gratefully invite you along on my new journey.
So, where have I gone, instead?
Back home. Or at least that’s how it feels.
Almost my whole professional life has been in front of audiences.
Students, employees of businesses, guests at conferences, events – the works. And it feels good to me. It feels like home. I see us speaking up as sharing our knowledge and magic with the world. I also see so many of my amazing clients, students and colleagues who are fearful of doing just that!
Are you someone who has a fear of public speaking?
I'm not just talking about on big stages, because we don't all do that.... I mean even in front of your work colleagues in a business meeting? In small groups, or even maybe online?
As I've worked with individuals and organisations running workshops and keynotes, it has become more and more apparent to me that I'm being pulled in this direction. One that supports you with overcoming that fear, and helps you understand who you are as a speaker, challenge mindset blocks around the 'kind of speaker' you need to be, in any situation, and overcome challenges that keep you small and quiet.
In the last two years I have naturally transitioned to increasingly working alongside the amazing Clare Desira of Top Five Movement as we help leaders and change-makers deliver better work, whilst also living a better life with a strong mindset amidst all of the uncertainty in the world and in their work. I transitioned to doing a lot of this work online during lock down, and it was so beautifully aligned with helping leaders outside of work – a natural progression after some soulful leadership consultancy and coaching training in 2019. While I have been deep in this leadership coaching work, I had a LOT of people ask me how they could more confidently 'speak up'.
This didn't just happen in my keynotes and workshops, but in my work as a lecturer as well. I've been a university lecturer/professional speaker for over a decade. In that time I've learnt a lot about how to feel more confident speaking up and I want to help you to feel more confident and speak in a way that is natural, authentic and unique to YOU (not the crazy public speaking specialists that portray their work in 'one way').
So here at katecashman.com I’ll be sharing more about:
Reimagining and nurturing your relationship with public speaking.
Supporting you to share your message in a way that is uniquely you.
Helping you with writing and delivering a heart-grabbing-show-stopping speech or presentation that oozes authenticity.
Falling in love with public speaking (or at least, hate it a lot less!).
There will always be a sprinkling of rest and renewal along the way.
Without expansion internally, my business could not have expanded in the way that it has.
And so here we are, reflecting on the years that have been 2020 and 2021.
Expansion showed up in ways I could never have imagined.
2022 is the year I bring you Speak Up: Mastering the Art of Public Speaking for Change-Makers, Teachers and Leaders. I can’t wait to bring you this body of work.
Imagine what 2022 might bring?